female narrator: The latest in a long line of brides
prepares to join
the most celebrated royal family on Earth.
[dramatic music]
Actress Meghan Markle will marry into a world
of grand tradition and vast wealth.
♪ ♪
- My whole life shall be devoted to your service.
narrator: But all that glitters is not gold.
For 100 years, this royal house
has faced scandal,
war...
- A bomb fell only a few feet from the palace building.
narrator: Adultery...
- It would have been far easier to have had two wives.
narrator: And tragedy.
- Diana, the Princess of Wales,
has died at the age of 36.
narrator: A family that will do
whatever it takes to survive.
- This vast crowd here to celebrate
six decades of the queen's reign.
narrator: Duty, power, and sacrifice.
"The Windsors."
♪ ♪
1911.
The future of the British monarchy
rests on the shoulders of a teenage boy:
Prince Edward.
He is the eldest son of King George V
and his wife, Queen Mary.
On his father's death,
Edward will reign over Britain and her vast empire.
♪ ♪
- Edward is only 17 when his father,
King George V,
forces him to go through this special ceremony
declaring him Prince of Wales and heir to the throne.
- The whole ceremony is all planned
by his father King George,
and everything about it is one giant symbol
of what George thinks monarchy should be.
narrator: King George V is the 38th monarch in a line
that stretches back nearly a thousand years
through eight royal houses
all the way to William the Conqueror.
Though George holds no direct political power,
as Head of State
and Supreme Governor of the Church of England,
many regard the king as the ultimate symbol
of Britain's national identity.
♪ ♪
Today, Edward will be publicly presented as king in waiting
when he is crowned Prince of Wales.
- King George designs this wonderful medieval outfit
for him to wear.
- Edward absolutely hates it,
and he can't wait to get out of the ceremonial robes.
- He must have looked to the future
with absolute horror.
It was a foretaste of a life of formality and ceremony
which he absolutely hated.
[crowd cheering]
- Edward is part of a new generation,
and he wants to do things differently from his father,
and his father, King George V,
is very much part of the old guard.
narrator: The upbringing of the royal children
has been purposefully shaped
to protect a thousand years of tradition.
- George V is particularly strict on his children
because he believes
that they should be sort of virtuous role models
that his people should then look up to and emulate.
- There were precise rules for everything.
The children could be punished for something so slight
as wearing the wrong kilt with the wrong jacket.
- George V had a ruthless temper.
When the boys were summoned to their father's study
they were absolutely terrified because he was the king,
and you didn't argue with the king.
- There is almost nothing
of the natural sort of fun and affection
that you would expect to see in most families.
narrator: As a child, Edward is closest
to his younger brother, Prince Albert,
known in the family as "Bertie."
- Bertie is shy.
He suffers from a serious stammer.
His father is very unsympathetic.
- Edward and Bertie are both really oppressed
by their father's tough regime,
and they do gain some solace
from the fact that they are in it together.
narrator: But the two brothers find an escape route
from their father's strict household...
war.
♪ ♪
- Germany is threatening to become
the dominant power on the European continent,
and there comes a point when Britain has to intervene.
narrator: More than 30 countries,
including the United States,
will be dragged into the first truly global conflict:
World War I.
- 20-year-old Edward,
like other 20-year-old young men in Britain
want to go out and fight for their country.
- George is advised that it would be good for him
and for the monarchy
if his sons are seen to take part.
narrator: But if the king allows his sons to go to war,
they will be fighting against their own family.
Germany's ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm,
is George's first cousin.
- In fact, the British royal family is related
to most of the royal houses of Europe.
They're all intermarried,
and they're all cousins of one another.
narrator: George V and Kaiser Wilhelm
are both grandsons of the late Queen Victoria.
Known as the Grandmother of Europe,
she sat at the center of a vast network
of royal families connected by blood and marriage.
Victoria was married to a German, Prince Albert.
- So the name of the British royal family
is the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty.
- George's German roots are a PR disaster waiting to happen.
His people are at war with Germany,
but how can the king command their loyalty
if they're questioning his British origins
in the first place?
- The British public becomes very much aware and critical
of the German origins of the king,
and at this point
George makes a really radical change.
- They have to change the family name.
- The question is, what name?
And all sorts of names were thought of,
and eventually they come up with the brilliant idea
of calling the new dynasty the House of Windsor.
[grand orchestral music]
narrator: The name comes from Windsor Castle,
one of the official residences of British monarchs.
- Windsor Castle, been there for a thousand years,
it's absolutely quintessential Britain.
- They change their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor,
and with that they say to the nation,
"We're not German; we're English.
We're English, just like you."
narrator: It works.
The PR maneuver increases the king's popularity.
One crisis has been averted,
but the war will soon force
an impossible decision on the king.
[dramatic music]
announcer: 1917.
The First World War rages on.
Prince Edward is now an officer in the British army.
- But he's not allowed to fight.
He's not allowed near the front line.
- He says to his father, King George,
"Look, I've got to be doing my bit."
And his father said,
"No, no, you can't risk being killed or captured."
- And that's an experience that he finds extremely humiliating.
narrator: His father insists that the Prince of Wales
is protected at all times,
but Edward defies his father's orders.
- At one point he escaped from his minders
and stole a motorbike and headed off for the front line.
[motorcycle engine chugs]
And he hears the stories of ordinary men,
and he sees the sacrifices that they're making.
- It's at this time that Edward realizes
that he is able to make contact and connection
with ordinary people outside the bubble of the court.
- He was extremely popular.
He represented a new generation.
♪ ♪
narrator: Edward's personal popularity may be on the rise,
but King George faces another wave
of public dissatisfaction with the monarchy.
- The carnage of the First World War
makes people question the old, traditional social order.
They're supposed to be fighting for king and country
but really, what is it all about?
- The working classes in particular
are questioning the decisions taken
by their social superiors, people like the monarchs.
- Particularly worrying is what's going on in Russia
with George's cousin, Tsar Nicholas II.
[crowd clamoring]
narrator: In March 1917,
revolutionaries depose the Tsar
and place the Russian royal family under house arrest.
- Tsar Nicholas needs asylum.
He wants to come to England.
- King George is very close to his cousin Nicky.
They were actually very good friends,
and they looked almost identical.
The problem with the Tsar is that
he is incredibly unpopular amongst some people in Britain.
- He is seen as a blood-stained tyrant,
brutally quashing any kind of uprising prior to 1917.
narrator: The fall of the Tsar is celebrated
by a growing number of the British working class.
- George is afraid that if he brings in Nicholas
we'll have a sort of flaming of communist revolution
in this country as well.
- If the Russian royal family can be toppled,
what's to say that the British royal family aren't next?
- George will do everything he can
to preserve his own dynasty and his own family.
narrator: The king makes a cold-hearted choice.
He refuses asylum to his cousin,
his wife, and their five children.
One year later,
King George learns the fate of his Russian family.
- A group of Bolshevik soldiers just opened fire on them.
[gunshots]
The Tsar died straightaway,
but it took a long time to kill his son,
the tsarina, and the princesses.
They all had jewels, diamonds, sewn into their underwear,
which acted as a kind of armor
and so their death was more agonizing
than it might otherwise have been.
- George writes in his diary of his shock and his misery,
but he never speaks of it publicly
because he knows he didn't save them.
He didn't offer them asylum.
- Ultimately,
the survival of the British monarchy comes first.
[soldiers cheering]
narrator: In November 1918, after four long years of war,
Germany surrenders.
Prince Edward, heir to the throne,
is welcomed home as a war hero.
- But at this point,
a whole new set of challenges emerges
and the biggest of those, perhaps,
is the survival of the British Empire,
which is starting to fray at the edges.
♪ ♪
narrator: King George's empire
extends from Canada to Australia,
covering a fifth of the world's population.
♪ ♪
Nearly 3 million of George's subjects
from across the empire fought in World War I,
and hundreds of thousands lost their lives.
Many now question their sacrifice.
♪ ♪
- There is lots of discontent and rebellion
in different parts of the empire.
- There are nationalist uprisings
and a lot of violence
in Egypt, Ireland, and in India.
- King George realizes
that his son Edward's wartime popularity
is something that he can use
to shore up the loyalty of the British Empire.
- In the fall of 1919, Edward is sent off
on his first major overseas tour to Canada.
- Edward embarks on these tours
as an ambassador on behalf of his father
to broker good relations
between Britain and the representative figures
who he meets in these different countries.
- The program that's been set for him
is a very old-fashioned, formal one
with carriage rides and formal lunches and receptions.
- Edward is the very antithesis of his parents,
King George and Queen Mary,
who were enormously correct and very, very stuffy.
- The first thing that Edward does when he gets to Canada
is to fire the organizer for the tour.
That's the same man
has organized his father's tour a few years before.
- He begins to practice
the more informal style of monarchy
which he had begun to develop during the First World War.
- He wants to have mass receptions
where he can meet as many people as possible.
- He shook so many hands that his right hand became unusable.
It was too bruised, and he had to start shaking hands
with people using his left hand.
- Of course, the Prince of Wales
was a very dynamic character,
and the fact that he was so good-looking,
he got mobbed wherever he went.
- At the end of his Canadian tour,
Edward decides to tack on
a visit to America
where President Woodrow Wilson has invited him.
- He's given a ticker tape parade in Manhattan,
and people are just delighted to see him.
[crowd cheering]
- He falls in love with the U.S. and American way of life.
♪ ♪
- For him, the wide-open spaces
represent a life of freedom,
somewhere where he can be his own man
in charge of his own destiny.
- Edward loves North America so much
that he buys a cattle ranch, and he has this fantasy
that one day he will be able to retire from public life
and go and live out a private existence on this ranch.
- He's got all of these responsibilities,
he's representing the British throne,
and then at the same time there are things that he wants to do.
He loves the social life; he loves to go dancing.
He really is a kind of Jazz Age prince.
narrator: The prince's flirtation with America
will set him on a collision course
not only with his father,
but also with the entire House of Windsor.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
announcer: Throughout the 1920s,
Prince Edward crisscrosses the British Empire
as ambassador for his father, King George.
- George V really understands that
for the monarchy to survive, it has to be useful.
Edward travels around the world
on behalf of the British Empire
on endless goodwill tours.
- What an amazing constitution the Prince of Wales must have.
Here he is arriving at a garden party in Buenos Aires
where he shook hands with over 500 people.
- Edward works really hard as Prince of Wales.
He goes on all these tours,
much more than George had done when he was Prince of Wales.
Prince Edward is Britain's answer
to Hollywood celebrity.
- Whatever he wears is adopted as a fashion.
- I suppose we shall all be wearing boaters now.
narrator: Despite Edward's huge popularity,
his father, King George,
is irritated by his modern approach.
- From George's point of view, Edward can do nothing right.
George is constantly picking, criticizing,
silly little things about, you know,
how he shakes too many hands, or he wears the wrong clothes.
You know, constant carping.
narrator: In 1924,
Edward takes a break from his royal duties
and is drawn back to his beloved America.
♪ ♪
- The USA is one of the few places in the world
that Edward visits that's not part of the British Empire,
so he feels much greater freedom in America.
[jaunty music]
♪ ♪
- Edward falls in with the kind of
high-living, socializing set of Long Island,
and he spends three weeks living it up.
♪ ♪
- One of the first people he meets in America
is Pinna Cruger, a Hollywood starlet.
She is married to a New York millionaire,
and they embark on a passionate affair.
♪ ♪
- It was fun, probably, for everybody,
except for the Prince of Wales's father
who back in England is thinking, "Good Lord,
this isn't possibly the tour that we had anticipated."
- When Edward returns from his trip to America in 1924,
his father is apoplectic.
[dramatic music]
- The king has a pile of news clippings on his desk
with such headlines as,
"Prince gets in with the milkman."
- George V expects his son to behave properly,
with decorum, with etiquette,
to project a certain moral virtuosity,
to maintain the image worthy of the future king.
In George's mind, Edward is letting the side down.
- George is furious at this public exposure,
and he is so annoyed
that he refuses to let Edward ever go back
to the United States again.
♪ ♪
narrator: But America's influence
has transformed Edward's vision
of the kind of royal he wants to be.
♪ ♪
- Edward believes that America is more democratic,
that if he could dispense with pomp and pageantry
that perhaps the monarchy will have a relevance.
- Britain is going through very difficult times economically
with the Depression.
He is out there meeting the people,
going into ordinary houses,
finding out about working conditions
on a much more direct and immediate level
than royalty has ever done before.
- Edward is enormously popular.
Suddenly here was somebody
who was willing to talk to you like a normal human being,
and people were just overwhelmed by that.
♪ ♪
- He speaks out about
the dreadful living conditions
and housing in Britain.
- And this shocked the government
because it was an implicit criticism of them.
- It was crossing a line, if you like,
that here was the Prince of Wales
actually getting involved with politics,
and this was something that the monarchy of George V
was certainly very against.
- Usually the monarchy should stay out of politics,
and Edward is breaking all the rules.
- King George worries desperately about the future,
and he is reported to say,
"After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in 12 months."
narrator: But the king is delighd
with the man his second son Bertie is promising to become.
- Edward and Bertie are very different characters.
Edward's very glamorous, outgoing,
and Bertie is terribly shy and rather nervous.
- Bertie marries Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
who is from a very grand, ancient,
Scottish aristocratic family.
- In 1926, she has Elizabeth.
In 1930, she has Margaret Rose.
- Bertie, in living his life the way he is,
is pleasing his father
and doing exactly what George V would want him to do.
- Bertie has become very close to his father,
and that's because he lives a virtuous family life.
And on the other hand you have Edward, the bad boy.
He is unmarried, single,
and his father thinks his eldest son
is woefully underprepared for becoming king.
- So as Edward approaches 40, he's really at a low ebb.
He feels lonely.
His brothers are all settling down,
making marriages, and having children.
- And that's when he meets the woman
who will throw the entire monarchy into crisis.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
announcer: London, spring 1934.
Prince Edward hosts a party at the Dorchester Hotel.
Among the guests are an American couple,
Ernest and Wallis Simpson.
♪ ♪
Wallis is a socialite from Baltimore.
Ernest, her second husband.
- Wallis exudes charm.
♪ ♪
She's got very strong features.
Of course, elegantly dressed.
Tiny skinny.
I mean, "You can never be too rich or too thin,"
I think she might have said. [laughs]
♪ ♪
- They're sitting together, other people are dancing,
and Edward suddenly opens up about his work,
the visits that he's making to the coal mining areas.
And Wallis listens attentively.
- And he talks to her about the burdens that he faces
and all the difficulties of his daily job,
and Wallis is not only deeply sympathetic,
she's very knowledgeable.
- And he says,
"Wallis, you're the first woman
who has ever been interested in my job."
♪ ♪
- Wallis very quickly realizes
that beneath that confident veneer,
the Prince is actually
lacking in self-confidence to some extent.
- In Wallis, he finds someone with whom he can really discuss
all these matters that are preying on his mind.
- Wallis doesn't defer to him in a slavish kind of way
as the English tended to do.
He was subjected to the most arrant,
appalling flattery by the English.
She didn't do that.
She'd talk to him as woman to man,
and he liked this.
narrator: Edward and Wallis become secret lovers.
Before long, she is a regular guest at Fort Belvedere,
his private retreat.
- Fort Belvedere meant everything to Edward.
He can be there
with no royal protocol going on around him.
- Fort Belvedere was his sort of getaway
from the rigors of court life.
- What he loves doing
is having the cocktails before dinner
and rolling up the carpet after dinner
and putting on gramophone records.
All of those sort of things that
Queen Mary up the road in Windsor Castle
and King George would abhor.
♪ ♪
- It's amazing how quickly
the relationship between Wallis and Edward develops.
- Edward falls head over heels for Wallis,
I think precisely because
she offers him the love and support
that he wasn't necessarily getting
particularly from his father but also his mother.
It's also the case that
Edward has a great affection for all things American.
- There was something about an American woman
that he found spirited and different and sparky
that is key to any relationship as far as Edward is concerned.
- She had this ability to make you feel
that you were the most important person in the room,
and the rest of the world had just sort of vanished
and she was completely focused on you.
- Wallis establishes herself very quickly
as the unofficial wife at Fort Belvedere.
- But Wallis presents a number of problems,
not least the fact
that she is married and has been divorced.
Divorce is simply not done.
I mean, it's taboo not just in Britain
but also in the United States.
- Divorced people in England at this point have no status.
They're almost viewed as pariahs.
- So, for him to have a relationship
with a woman who has been divorced
is completely unheard of.
- Divorced people can't be presented at court,
so they can't meet the royal family officially.
- However, Edward is so besotted with her
that he wants her to accompany him
to the pre-wedding ball of his younger brother,
Prince George.
- Edward is absolutely determined
he is going to bring Wallis to this party
to meet his father against all advice and protocol.
♪ ♪
- Edward's younger brother Bertie and his wife Elizabeth
are horrified.
They think that this unscrupulous woman,
this woman of low morals,
should not be in the company either of themselves
or for that matter, the Prince of Wales.
- Wallis is finally introduced to Edward's father,
King George V,
and she feels the icy stare almost burning through her.
♪ ♪
- George really explodes with rage and says, you know,
"She must not darken my doors again."
And there is a real serious bust-up
between father and son.
- King George and Queen Mary
are terribly worried about the degree
to which he is completely under Wallis's spell.
narrator: His parents are fearful
of what this could mean for the future of the monarchy.
♪ ♪
But before they can intervene,
King George's health suddenly declines.
- King George becomes seriously ill.
It's clear that he's on his death bed,
and that means that Edward will become king,
and that will change
everything about his relationship with Wallis.
[dramatic music]
narrator: At Sandringham House in January 1936,
King George V dies from heart failure
at the age of 70.
- When George breathes his last,
Mary, the queen--
one of her first acts is to bow before her son Edward
and to kiss his hand, because in that moment
he's gone from being Edward
to King Edward VIII.
♪ ♪
- Two days after he becomes king,
there is a ceremony at St. James's Palace
when his accession is proclaimed.
[fanfare]
- Prince Edward Albert Christian
George Andrew Patrick David.
[cannon blasts]
- My grandmother was at the proclamation.
She's there in the courtyard,
and looking up, she sees at a window
the new king, Edward,
with Wallis by his side,
and she's very shocked by this.
- We have the new king standing next to his American mistress
laughing, enjoying himself,
when they should have been in mourning,
and it should have been
a much more somber, dignified occasion.
- The king's only just died.
To appear at a window
with your mistress as you're proclaimed king?
Well, what more can I say?
♪ ♪
- The gravity of his role as the new constitutional king
seems to pass Edward completely by.
- And you get the feeling that really
he is kind of liberated.
Now, his father is gone.
He can do exactly what he wants.
- He spends most of every week planning luncheons and dinners
and weekends at Fort Belvedere,
or buying costly presents and jewels for Wallis.
A playboy king.
- Edward's reliance on Mrs. Simpson grows.
He neglects his official duties.
He doesn't do the things that he's supposed to be doing.
He doesn't do his job.
narrator: So far, his affair with Mrs. Simpson
has been successfully kept from the public,
but Edward's passion for Wallis
is becoming all-consuming.
- Edward should be meeting and greeting his ministers,
looking through state papers and signing off laws,
and yet, he very quickly lets things slide.
♪ ♪
- Edward charters a yacht
to go round the Mediterranean for a few days.
- Edward thinks that he's sort of off-duty.
He can behave as anybody might behave in those circumstances.
You know, they sail round Greece.
He's photographed without his shirt on.
This would have made poor George V turn in his grave.
- Up to then, in public at least,
he's been relatively discreet about meeting Wallis,
but on holiday he throws caution to the winds,
and there are dozens of photographers
following Edward and Wallis on this tour.
♪ ♪
- The American press print so many photographs
of Mrs. Simpson with the king
that it starts a conversation
about whether or not they will marry.
♪ ♪
- And there's one particularly compromising photograph
which shows Wallis Simpson resting her hand
in a very sort of comfortable way on his arm.
- The king's body is reverent and dignified.
You're not meant to touch the king's body,
certainly not in public.
It's not the done thing.
- That is the moment when it's pretty obvious they are close
and have been for some time.
- The trip is very much a turning point
for Wallis and Edward,
because their relationship becomes known globally.
narrator: While the entire world learns
of Edward and Mrs. Simpson's affair,
in Britain, the story is censored.
- You could buy American newspapers in England,
but if there was a story about Wallis
it would be cut out with scissors.
The newsagents had to remove it
before they were allowed to sell it.
- Now, this is as a result of a gentleman's agreement
whereby the press is very deferential to the monarchy.
- So after Mrs. Simpson and Edward
return from their cruise,
her Aunt Bessie from Baltimore
sends her a pile of newspaper clippings.
- Wallis is furious that she's become public property.
Wallis says to the king,
"We have to break this off now."
- He's besotted by her.
He's absolutely at her mercy.
- He threatens, wherever she goes
he will come and find her, and if he doesn't find her,
having searched the four corners of the Earth,
he will kill himself.
♪ ♪
narrator: Finally, Wallis and Ernest Simpson
decide their marriage is over
and initiate divorce proceedings.
- A crisis is now imminent.
- Members of the government, members of the palace,
all become very concerned
that within six months, she will be divorced
and she will then be free to marry him.
- For the royal family to marry a divorced woman
is the most appalling,
scandalous, unthinkable thing.
♪ ♪
- As king,
Edward is Supreme Governor of the Church of England
and defender of the faith, and as such,
he simply could not marry a divorced woman
because this was outlawed
by the faith which he was trying to defend.
- And King Edward realizes
that he's going to have to make a choice.
[fanfare]
- Today, the American press
is filled with rumors of royal romance,
and in this topsy-turvy world, it may be time
for an American woman to marry a British king.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
narrator: King Edward has been on the throne
for just nine months.
Until now, he's managed to keep his two-year affair
with Wallis secret from the British public.
- The world knows all about this relationship,
but in Britain, they're still in the dark.
- Expatriates in America are writing home to Britain
saying, "What is happening?"
♪ ♪
- Finally, Edward has a meeting
with the Prime Minister, Baldwin.
♪ ♪
- Edward declares his hand.
He says that he is determined to marry Wallis.
♪ ♪
- This is a bombshell.
- The prime minister tells him that he has three options.
He can give up his relationship
with Mrs. Simpson,
he can marry Mrs. Simpson
against the express wishes of his ministers
who will then resign,
or he can abdicate.
♪ ♪
- There is no precedence for abdication.
There is no blueprint of what a king
or indeed a prime minister or a parliament should do.
- It's the throne or it's Mrs. Simpson.
It's one or the other. He can't have both.
- However, before Edward has made a decision,
the story breaks in the press.
♪ ♪
- Ultimately, the British newspapers realize
that they simply can't hold off any longer.
This story is too big.
They break the gentleman's agreement
and decide to publish it.
- The British Empire faces an extraordinary crisis.
Not for centuries have these houses of parliament witnessed
so dangerous a political struggle.
Shall King Edward VIII marry Mrs. Simpson?
No, say the ministers of the cabinet
supported by the Church of England
and the upper classes.
They are bitter in opposition to the king
marrying the American woman twice divorced.
♪ ♪
- There's a great division among the public
between those people who see this as a great love story,
and then there are a great many people who see this
as an absolute dereliction of duty
because he wants to marry a American socialite.
- Wallis becomes immensely unpopular
as the woman who threatens to take away the king,
and her house is surrounded.
Stones are thrown through the window.
- She's the center of this attention,
and you know,
that would be hard for any woman.
- So Wallis is quite panicked now
and she thinks the time is right to flee London,
and she drives off to the south of France
and she's chased by a press pack
desperate for more details.
- Edward is desolate when she leaves.
She has been his support,
his confidant, and obviously, his lover,
and without her he is completely bereft.
♪ ♪
- Edward finds himself faced with a huge dilemma.
He's having to choose between
doing the job that he had trained his entire life for
and Wallis Simpson.
[distant bells clanging]
narrator: Eight days after the crisis breaks,
Edward finally addresses the nation.
♪ ♪
- This is Windsor Castle.
His royal highness, Prince Edward.
- I was in bed.
I think I was half asleep,
'cause I remember somebody coming in
and saying that the king's coming on,
so there was going to be an announcement.
- I mean, everybody tuned in.
It was an extraordinary moment.
- Until now,
it has not been constitutionally possible
for me to speak.
A few hours ago,
I discharged my last duty
as king and emperor.
But you must believe me when I tell you
that I have found it impossible
to carry the heavy burden of responsibility
and to discharge my duties as king
as I would wish to do
without the help and support of the woman I love.
- When the British public finally learns what's happened,
they feel absolutely shocked and betrayed.
How could a king give up his throne and empire?
♪ ♪
- I thought it was a doomsday.
I thought it was the end of the world.
[chuckling] We hadn't got a king anymore.
♪ ♪
- Edward sits down with his brothers around him
as witnesses to this momentous, unprecedented event
and signs that fateful decree,
abdicating the throne of England.
- Bertie, who will become king, feels nothing but dread
at the prospect of succeeding.
Edward himself feels a sense, finally, of freedom.
[engine turns over]
narrator: In the early hours of December the 12th,
Edward leaves the country and goes into exile.
- No king has ever abdicated like this before.
It's completely unprecedented.
- Edward leaves after just over 300 days on the throne...
♪ ♪
And in doing so, he throws the monarchy into chaos.
narrator: Next on "The Windsors"...
- Bertie has been tasked with this incredibly difficult job.
- He'd always been the moon to his brother's sun.
- His brother Edward is, if you like,
cavorting with the Nazis.
- And all of this was undermining Bertie.
- Edward hasn't yet adjusted to the fact
that he is not the king.
This is a big problem.